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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

What is Cruise Control and how does it work?

New to Cruise Control? Download the App for a simple step-by-step tutorial or read more about how it works here! Cruise control works because of a lot of really complicated, revolutionary, and amazing science. And, undoubtedly a little magic, too. Go for a run with it and you’ll know what we’re talking about. Here’s the basics:

Choose how you want to run (pace, heart rate, cadence, or free run)

Choose your favorite running music

Go run. Cruise Control will adjust your music to control your running and keep you on track to hit that target pace, heart rate or cadence. Magic.

When you first open the App, Cruise Control will pull all the music on your phone into the app and run it through a BPM analyzer, selecting only the songs that are best for running. Sorry podcasts, kiddie sing-a-longs, and Enya- you’re out. Need more tunes? Check out our daily recommendations by following us on Twitter @CruiseCtrlRun

Then you choose how you want to run. Free Run is a great place to start. Just start running and your music will speed up or slow down to match the rhythm of your steps. Or use Pace, Heart Rate, or Cadence mode. Set your target and Cruise Control will automatically change the speed of the music to get you there. All you have to do is run to the rhythm of the music. It’s kind of like setting cruise control on your car. You just set your target speed (or HR, or Cadence) and forget it. Just run to the rhythm of the music and you’ll stay on target.

Start to get tired and fall off your target? Cruise Control will get you back on track with a metronome that kicks in to help. The steady ticking noise makes it hard NOT to match the rhythm. Once you’re back on target, your music will come back on.

Don’t worry—since we’ve pre-selected the best songs from your music library you won’t get any songs that are so sped up they sound like chipmunks or so slowed down that they’re crawling through molasses. If you do get a song that isn’t working for you, just give it a thumbs down and never hear it again.

Make custom Cruise Control playlists in the music tab. You can choose based on the songs you liked best (thumbs up!), genre, mood, or whatever tickles your fancy.

Check out all of your Cruise Control runs in the history tab and choose an individual run to see more details, data, maps, and even share your run on Facebook, Twitter, and more!